Popular Articles

Robin Hood Or Villain: The Social Constructions Of Pablo Escobar, Jenna Bowley

Honors College

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and leader of the Medellin Cartel which at one point controlled as much as 80% of the international cocaine trade. He is famous for waging war against the Colombian government in his campaign to outlaw extradition of criminals to the United State and ordering the assassination of countless individuals, including police officers, journalists, and high ranking officials and politicians. He is also well known for investing large sums of his fortune in charitable public works, including the construction of schools, sports fields and housing developments for the urban poor. While U.S. and ...

The American Dream: An Illusion Or Reality For Latino Immigrants, Jessica L. Del Cid

Senior Honors Theses

Many Latinos from Mexico, Central America, and South America have made the decision to immigrate to the United States in recent years—whether legally or illegally. In the literature, stories of immigration and hopes for the American Dream proliferated; however, varying degrees of racism and anti-immigration sentiment were also revealed. Interviews of first-generation Latino immigrants and American citizens that were both attendees of a local Hispanic church in southcentral Virginia showed that Latino immigrants had hopes of achieving what they believed to be the American Dream, while realizing they had a long journey ahead. American citizens were more certain of ...

The Life And Work Of Gloria Anzaldúa: An Intellectual Biography, Elizabeth Anne Dahms

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The writings and life of Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (1942-2004) have had an immense impact in a variety of disciplines. Her oft-cited text Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) is included in many university courses’ reading lists for its contributions to discourses of hybridity, linguistics, intersectionality and women of color feminism, among others. Unfortunately, most scholars content themselves with the intricacies of Borderlands to the neglect of her corpus of work, which includes essays, books, edited volumes, children’s literature and fiction/autohistorias. This analysis presented here wishes to expand our understandings of Anzaldúa’s work by engaging with her ...

Grand strategy is the purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in both war and peacetime, and how it should go about doing so. In this paper, I analyze the grand strategy of Fidel Castro during the formative years of the Cuban Revolution (1959-1968), as he sought to carve out a place for Cuba at the vanguard of the International Communist Movement (ICM). Castro had four grand strategic aims: breaking Cuba’s historical ties with the United States, ensuring the stability of the Cuban Revolution domestically, maintaining Cuba’s ability to act independently of ...

The Modernization Of Resistance: Latin American Women Since 1500, Melanie Byam

Undergraduate Review

The Patriarchy’S Role In Gender Inequality In The Caribbean, Erin C. O'Connor

Student Publications

While gender equality in the Caribbean is improving, with women’s growing social, economic, and political participation, literacy rates comparable to those in Europe, and greater female participation in higher education, deeply rooted inequalities are still present and are demonstrated in the types of jobs women are in and the limited number of women in decision-making positions. Sexism, racism, and classism are systemic inequalities being perpetuated in schools, through the types of education offered for individuals and the content in textbooks. Ironically, the patriarchy is coexisting within a system of matrifocal and matrilocal families, with a long tradition of female ...

Spanish and Portuguese Graduate Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation studies the representations of prostitution in relation to artistic and literary creation in contemporary Spanish American novels (1964-2011). Specifically, I analyze the following five novels: Juntacadáveres (1964) by Juan Carlos Onetti, ¡Qué viva la música! (1977) by Andrés Caicedo, El vampiro de la colonia Roma (1979) by Luis Zapata, Memoria de mis putas tristes by Gabriel García Márquez (2004) and Canción de tumba by Julián Herbert. (2011). I argue that prostitution is a trope that allows these novels to embody purely literary processes such as reading and writing.

Critical literature on prostitution in nineteen and twenty century Latin-American ...

European Immigration In Argentina From 1880 To 1914, Sabrina Benitez

Honors Theses

Situated in the southernmost region of South America, encompassing a variety of climates from the frigid Antarctic to the warmest tropical jungles, lies a country that was once a land of hope for many Europeans: Argentina. Currently Argentina is a country of one million square miles-four times larger than Texas, five times larger than France, with more than thirty seven million inhabitants. One third of the people in Argentina live in Greater Buenos Aires, the economic, political, and cultural center. Traditionally having an economy based on the exportation of beef, hides, wool, and corn, Argentina transformed this pattern during the ...

All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa’s History of the Incas (1572). A Critical Study and Annotated Edition.

by Aleksín H. Ortega

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa wrote his polemic and undoubtedly political History of the Incas at the request of Francisco de Toledo (Viceroy of Peru, 1569-1581). Toledo wanted to deliver to the Spanish King a version of Incan history which could subsequently be used as an ideological tool in the search of legal and moral arguments to defend the Andean colonization by the Spanish monarchy. Since his arrival to the Peruvian territories, Toledo embarked on a long personal visit ...

Dissidences

Perceptions On Santería: Then And Now, Ludmille Glaude

Undergraduate Research

This paper will examine how the Batista and Castro regimes were able to impact the perception of Santería amongst the Cuban public. Santeria is a polytheistic religion practiced in Cuba that combines elements of Yoruba beliefs and Catholicism. Recently, Santeria appears to be experiencing a growth in visibility in Cuba. The syncretic religion and its visibility, has become of interest to examine and report on, amongst many media outlets. According to a Vice News article published as recently as 2014, the author dubs Santería as “Cuba’s New Religion”. The article describes Santería as a dynamic form of worship, with ...

Bookshelf

A visually stunning graphic memoir of an Argentinian immigrant’s experience during the civil rights movement.Cuarto oscuro: Recuerdos en blanco y negro is the long-awaited Spanish-language translation of Lila Quintero Weaver’s critically acclaimed Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White. An arresting and moving memoir about childhood, race, ethnicity, and identity in the American South, Cuarto oscuro is animated by Weaver’s stunning illustrations. Her drawings are visually understated but striking and dramatically embolden her heartfelt storytelling. In 1961, when the author was five, she emigrated with her family from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Marion, Alabama, located in ...

Who Controls Haiti's Destiny? A Examination Of Haiti's Underdevelopment, Endless Poverty, And The Role Played By Ngos, Patrick Scheld

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The presence of NGOs and development agencies is often considered an apolitical phenomenon, and that the very presence of NGOs within a country is a symbol of a global humanity in action; in short, NGOs equal charity which equals good work. Unfortunately, the reality is often much more complicated as NGOs can also be found to be self-serving, anti-democratic and strictly in pursuit of their next funding source. In this thesis I advance the central hypothesis that the international community’s continued pursuit of an NGO-led neoliberal economic development model has systematically failed to contribute to the sustainable development of ...

Trauma In Guatemala And Postville, Iowa, Jessica J. Lechtenberg

Latin American Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

This study uses a historical understanding of Guatemala to explain the significant trauma following the largest immigration raid in U.S. history which primarily deported Guatemalan residents who had been working at the Agriprocessors meat processing plant without documentation. Through an analysis of literature detailing the immigration raid, Guatemala's history of violence, and court proceedings, I have found that high levels of trauma exist for the individuals who were deported following the raid and for their families and friends. Personal communication with the current Dean of Students at Postville's public school lends a hand in gaining a deeper ...

The Legacy Of British Rule On Lgbt Rights In Jamaica And The Cayman Islands, Zachary Stewart

Master's Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between British colonial influence and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) rights in the Caribbean. Comparing the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and Jamaica, an independent former colony of the United Kingdom, the situation for LGBT people is evaluated. While Jamaica has serious abuses and a concerning situation for the human rights of LGBT people, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT community’s position is far less concerning. Owing to its continued connection to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Cayman Islands’ LGBT rights situation is much less dire. Through British influence ...

Voiceless Victims In Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso, Henry James Morello

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Voiceless Victims in Sin tetas no hay paraíso" Henry James Morello discusses Gustavo Bolívar's Sin tetas no hay paraiso. The novel is, in Bolívar's words, his way of bringing attention to the problem of young women in Colombia using prostitution in order to pay for plastic surgery a very specific problem facing the youth of Colombia. However, at what price is the success of the novel? Or, rather, who is compromised as a result of this cultural phenomenon? The author may have intended to write a novel that called attention to the problems facing Colombian ...

“The Only Way Out Is In”: Negotiating Identity Through Narrative In The House On Mango Street And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Brianna E. Taylor

Honors College Theses

While aimed at vastly different audiences, Sandra Cisneros’s beloved coming-of-age story The House on Mango Street and Junot Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao both uniquely capture the complexities of navigating the hyphenated territory between their respective Mexican-American and Dominican-American identities. Cisneros engages readers with the simple yet profound narrative voice of Esperanza in a series of vignettes that subtly reveal a growing consciousness of her role as a young Mexican-American woman and her creative consciousness as an artist. Through the multifaceted narrative perspective of Yunior, Díaz skillfully weaves together “ghetto nerd ...

Forging Alliances Across Fronteras: Transnational Narratives Of Female Migration And The Family, Vanessa De Veritch Woodside

Vanessa de Veritch Woodside

This dissertation examines the effects of transnational migration on women with particular attention to the (re-)negotiation of personal and cultural identity resulting from the adoption of novel roles within Chicana narratives of Mexican migration. Chapter One offers a historical background regarding the U.S.-Mexico border, (im)migration, and more specifically, women and migration, as well as an overview of pertinent Chicano migrant literature that serves as an appropriate point of departure for discussion of Chicana re-writings of such texts. This discussion offers border feminism as a framework for analyzing the representation of evolving feminine roles and familial configurations ...

Elisa Cardenas

Colonialization’s racism and discrimination in Latin America have pushed many indigenous populations to poverty in isolated rural areas with limited access to resources, education, and technology, particularly as relates to agriculture, their main source of income and employment. Governments and development organizations recognize agriculture as a key channel for developmental growth in rural areas. Fundamyf, a non-governmental organization, has focused on promoting agricultural growth to increase the quality of life of small-scale indigenous producers through the production, consumption, and sale of quinoa. While quinoa is an ancient crop traditionally consumed and produced by indigenous populations in the Andes of ...

Publications and Research

“It has to do with my emotional DNA— storytelling and maternal love are linked together. I was brought up by women who read to me as a kid. I love storytelling because I associate it with love, and that has carried over tremendously throughout my life.” That is how Dr. Rick Rodríguez explains his love for literature.

A native of Havana, Cuba, Rodríguez went on to receive his bachelor’s in English from Florida International University and his doctorate, also in English, from the University of Chicago. Today he is an assistant professor in the Department of English of the ...

From Locus Amoenus To Locus Horribilis: Provincial And Urban Spaces Of Cultural (Re)Assertion And Hegemony In Yates And Sigel’S When The Mountains Tremble And Bustamante’S Ixcanul, Katrina Abad

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

The trope of locus amoenus, or the idyllic representation of heaven on earth, and its counterpart locus horribilis, or the mundane incarnation of hell, was first critically defined by Ernst Robert Curtius in 1953 and identified in religiously influenced literature as early as Latin and medieval European works. Since then, the locus theory has appeared in numerous secular texts and films, such as Marcelo Ferrari’s Sub Terra (2004), as a means of distinguishing the once-pristine ‘purity’ of provincial spaces from the physically and metaphorically cramped mines and buildings produced by an urbanized modernity. This essay seeks to translate the ...

The Anti-Hero Perspective Of Sebastián Silva’S The Maid, Amber Bradley

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

Many contemporary Latin American films portray a character or a protagonist that strives to bring in an audience to emphasize the “underdog” and their role in society. In Sebastián Silva’s Chilean film, The Maid (2009), Raquel is a maid and nanny, who achieves the exact opposite throughout the movie. This servant’s societal perspectives concerning distinct classes and gender roles are shown through her photographs and passive aggressive actions towards some of the family members and the other women, who are hired to help her lighten the housework of the home. Raquel’s attitude, mistreatment and tricks demonstrate her ...

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

Cinematographic resources as meaningful affordances in a foreign language class.” In this presentation, Osborne will discussa proposal for use of films as works of art in foreign languages classes. She will show how cinematographic features (e.g., sound, color, lighting, camera angles, mise-en-scène) and their implication for film narrative − rarely emphasized in foreign language classrooms − can be a powerful tool to engage students in a dialogical and ecological construction of knowledge. Consideration of cinematographic features in scenes from the Brazilian Portuguese films Abril Despedaçado (Cohn & Salles, 2001) and Raízes e Asas (Cabral & Pimenta, 2011), and how these features can ...